Social Games Maker DeNA Working On “Console Quality” FPS

DeNA, developer of social games and owner of the Mobage mobile games platform, are developing a “high-intensity, console-quality” first-person shooter for mobile devices, the company announced this week.

Titled The Drowning, this game will be a free-to-play title that will be released for iOS devices in early 2013. It’s being developed by Scattered Entertainment, a DeNA studio in Stockholm, Sweden.

In The Drowning, you’ll take on the role of one of the few remaining survivors of a global catastrophe. The game takes place in a world where unexplained oil spills have transformed millions of people into “soulless creatures”. You’ll need to craft and upgrade weapons as you work together with other players to survive. DeNA say the The Drowning will have a “grim, suspenseful storyline”.

“Scattered Entertainment’s vision is to bring the type of deep, high-quality and immersive games normally only experienced on PC and consoles, to the convenient, powerful modern mobile device,” said Ben Cousins, general manager of Scattered Entertainment and head of DeNA’s European studio operations.

“The Drowning combines the play-patterns and touch-screen specific control systems expected of tablet and smartphone games with unmatched console-quality graphics, innovative skill-based gameplay and a rich, expansive fictional world.”

Cousins has a history with the first-person shooter genre. He’s worked on the Battlefield series for Electronic Arts, and hopes that The Drowning will be able to win players of console games over.

I personally might be a bit “burnt out” on the concepts here, but I think there has been a good number of first-person shooters involving an apocalypse or an undead outbreak (or both). On the other hand, if that’s what it takes to draw the console FPS players over to mobiles, I suppose the choice makes sense, at the very least. The developer sounds promising as well, theoretically speaking.

In any case though, at least humanity won’t fall by Birdemic now~

Juan Andrés Valencia

Actually… have you played Revelations 2012? It’s the gaming equivalent to Birdemic or Monster A-Go-Go.

My condolences. I had (presumably) the same reaction after playing… a selected few games I had the misfortune to come across.

ragingmerifes

It is console-quality indeed. The N64 was a console.

Julien_N

A FPS played with a touchscreen? O_o

How it it going to work? I mean, even with a current console controller and its two sticks, it is way worse than a mouse and a keyboard, so playing such a game with a “smartphone”, which has a more limited control layout, is going to be a strange experience I think.

That said, it is probably better than “social” games. And the team is experienced in this field.

Oh, hey, this reminds me of something – has anyone played Baroque FPS? Is it good? (or playable) I don’t have those devices (I don’t even have a regular phone huhu~) so I can’t play it, but I am curious to know how it turned out.

Göran Isacson

Have to admit I like the monster designs here. There’s this… odd mixture of “zombie” and “porcelain doll” to it, makes it looks pretty intriguing. I am wondering how you control the game though… aim with the touchsscreen, move around by moving the phone? That’d be a pretty terrible hassle…

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